SOME CHRISTMAS FERNS. 193 



there in numbers, their twitters, chirps and calls 

 enlivening the welkin for rods around. A 

 flicker also I note, which at intervals utters a 

 shrill, loud, single call note, different from any 

 I have heard the species make before. The bird 

 is in a dogwood shrub and is probably making a 

 meal of the scarlet berries which are yet plen- 

 tiful. 



Farther down, the perpendicular cliffs of 

 gray and red sandstone, which mark the base of 

 the Coal Measures, rise from the margin of the 

 stream. From crannies along their front I 

 gather an armful of the fronds of the poly- 

 pody and christmas ferns green as they were 

 last June-time and with them and with the 

 music of the birds still ringing in my ear, I 

 homeward start. 



V. 



Aug. 1 , '01. The sun shines bright from his 

 throne in the skies, and his beams glance mer- 

 rily athwart the maple foliage and glint along 

 the grasses and sedgee which border the margin 

 of the stream. I sit on a great hewn log, twenty 

 feet or more in length, which some pioneer 



(13) 



